What does chromosome number have to do with cell division?
Meiosis, as you read in the introduction for this lesson, is the way we make our gametes. A man and a woman each have 46 chromosomes. To have a child through sexual reproduction, they have to jumble up their genes and combine them together using their gametes. If the man put all of his 46 chromosomes in his sperm and the woman put all of her 46 chromosomes in her egg, when the sperm and the egg combined, the zygote would have 92 chromosomes! That is way too many! The zygote could not develop into a person. So, instead, the man and woman have to only put half the number of chromosomes into each gamete. That means that the sperm would get 23 chromosomes, the egg would get 23 chromosomes, and the zygote would end up with the correct number of chromosomes, 46, after fertilization. To reduce the number of chromosomes from 46 to 23 in the gamete, the gamete has to be made through meiosis. And, now that you know a lot about homologous chromosomes, it should make sense to you that the only way
